The women’s 10m Air Pistol final opened day-2 of the ISSF Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The final was won by the 2004 Olympic Champion and 2012 Olympic Bronze medalist Olena Kostevych of the Ukraine.
The 31-year old athlete scored 200.2 points in the final, after qualifying with 386 points, and finished atop of the podium after a neck and neck fight against Greece’s Anna Korakaki.
Today’s was the fourth world cup medal of the season won by the Ukrainian champion, the second gold following her victory at the pre-Olympic world cup in Rio de Janeiro. Kostevych is the favorite in the lead-up to the Games: ranked first in the world in the air pistol event, when she competed in a world cup stage she always finished on the podium, this year.
The 2014 European junior champion Anna Korakaki of Greece, 20, pocketed today’s silver medal with 199.1 points. She was followed by the 2014 World Cup title winner Alejandra Zavala Vazquez, 32, who claimed today’s Bronze with 175.9 points.
The 2014 Youth Olympic Games silver medalist and 2015 European junior champion Margarita Lomova of the Russian Federation, 20, closed her first world cup final match in fifth place with 137.2 points, following Switzerland’s Heidi Diethelm Gerber, 47, fourth with 156.4 points.
Another first-time finalist, Joanna Tomala of Poland, 22, took the sixth place with 115.2 points, while Germany’s Stefanie Thurmann and Mongolia’s Otryad Gundegmaa were the firsts to be eliminated, placing in seventh and eighth place with 95.5 and 74.9 points, respectively.
The ISSF World Cup in Baku continues now with the men’s 10m Air Rifle final, scheduled to take place at 1.00 PM (GMT+4).